>
> Does the Starter Kit from Xilinx contain the JTAG
> for me to use? I believe I would only use the
> development board for it's hobbist friendliness and
> it's smaller kit board for some projects.

At one time the ones made by Digelent came with a clone of the old
parallel port JTAG cable. Works if you have a parallel port but a bit
on the slow side for programming big parts. Also uses a larger header.
The USB cable or Parallel Cable IV is a good investment.

>
> > I don't know how familiar you are with FPGAs, so
> > I'll give a few
> > pointers. First off the configuration in an FPGA is
> > usually volatile
> > (stored in SRAM), when the power goes, so does the
> > config. That means
> > you have to program the FPGA each time you power up.
> > During development
> > that is fine since you'll have your programmer
> > connected. However, to
> > get standalone you'll need to add "FPGA PROMs" to
> > the board. They are
> > basically special EEPROMs that will program the FPGA
> > on powerup.
>
> I think a PIC solution would be great here. Am I
> right?

Yes you can do this but you will still need a relatively large
non-volatile storage device unless you plan on booting through some
other communication stream (RS232, USB, ethernet, etc) while connected
to a PC. Adding the serial EEPROMs for the FPGAs is not a big deal.
Cheap parts. Can be in-system programed via the above mentioned
programming cables.

I've worked on systems were we had both EEPROM and the ability to
reprogram the FPGAs from a processor (happened to be a DSP). Worked
great for field upgrades since the DSP was already talking to a monitor
port and could reprogram its FLASH.

Several app notes on Xilinx's site about microcontroller booting, using
a CPLD to boot and other fun stuff.

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Subject (change)
Into FPGA